Dan Stouffer 1975 Watercolor — Enchanted Mesa New Mexico Framed 

There is a place in western New Mexico — an hour past Albuquerque, where the I-40 corridor opens into the high Cibola plateau — where a single sandstone butte rises 430 feet from the desert floor in sheer, vertical silence. The Keres people called it Katzimo. The Spanish named it Mesa Encantada. We know it as Enchanted Mesa. Acoma legend holds that the tribe once lived on its summit, farming the golden valley below, until a catastrophic storm washed away the only path up the cliff face, stranding those left behind and severing the people from their home forever. They moved to a neighboring mesa and built what is now Acoma Pueblo — Sky City — one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America. Katzimo has stood untouched above the desert ever since.

Dan Stouffer painted this view in 1975, one year after he arrived in New Mexico and while still working at the University of New Mexico Press — lured, as he later described, by the mystique and beauty of the land. It is an early original, predating his full-time career by four years and among his first sustained encounters with the landscape that would define his life's work. The composition is panoramic and unhurried: the great butte anchors the right field in warm sandstone tones, its sheer face catching the afternoon light; the scrubland stretches golden across the basin; and the layered mesa horizon recedes in soft blue-grey, consistent with the Acoma plateau formations visible from this vantage. Above it all, a luminous New Mexico sky — cumulus clouds built high and loose, the kind that roll in off the desert by mid-afternoon. The handling of that sky alone demonstrates the spatial fluency that would later earn Stouffer sixty national and regional awards, representation by Weems Gallery in Albuquerque, and listings in Who's Who in American Art and Who's Who in the West.

This is not a decorative landscape. It is a specific place, a specific moment, rendered by a painter who understood what he was looking at — a sacred landform, a piece of deep New Mexico, caught at the beginning of a remarkable career. Professionally framed, double-matted behind glass, and in very good condition. From a New Mexico private collection.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Ohio and educated at the Ohio State University, Dan Stouffer's early professional career was in book design and production management. His first years in New Mexico were spent at the University of New Mexico Press, where — drawn by the mystique and beauty of the land — he began painting. He turned part-time success in local and regional exhibitions into a full-time career in 1979 and never looked back.

Since then, Stouffer has won 60 national and regional awards in prominent watermedia competitions including Watercolor U.S.A., Rocky Mountain National, and Arts for the Parks. His work has been shown in museums and is held in corporate collections throughout the country. He is a member of the Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Society, Watercolor USA Honor Society, and Paint America Association, and is listed in Who's Who in American Art and Who's Who in the West. His work has been featured in Southwest Art, Watercolor Quarterly, and Watercolor Magic. In 2010, the Albuquerque Art Business Association named him a "local treasure." He currently resides in Bosque Farms, NM, and is represented by Weems Gallery, Albuquerque.

CONDITION

Very good overall, with no remarkable damage. The image surface appears clean with no visible foxing or staining consistent with age. Matting and frame present well. Please review all photos carefully. 

SPECIFICATIONS